


Frayed

by dedkake



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, M/M, Past Torture, Self Confidence Issues, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 22:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1619459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedkake/pseuds/dedkake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The war against mutants the world over has come to an end and Genosha, a former prison camp, becomes the first nation of mutants.  Charles and Erik meet again after fifteen years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frayed

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt from the kink meme](http://xmen-firstkink.livejournal.com/9701.html?thread=22458597#t22458597). Unbeta'd, sorry.

There are so many things wrong with him, Charles thinks, rubbing at his finger where his wedding band used to lie. They’d taken it from him at the beginning, so long ago that there’s no longer a tan line, no longer an indent in the skin, nothing to indicate that he’d ever been married at all. Even the bonding marks circling his hands and wrists have faded, pale and pink like scars where they used to stand out stark and brown on his pale skin.

Charles feels ugly and small in his wheelchair, surrounded on all sides by cameramen and reporters as they wait. He’s cold, a blanket spread across his lap, covering what remains of his legs, a sweater around his shoulders and a knit hat on his head despite the warmth of the Genoshan sun. Some of the cold is a simple physical discomfort, but it’s mostly a psychological sensation, a chill that permeates every layer of his being—he hasn’t been truly warm for nearly fifteen years.

Picking at the hem of the hat, Charles feels sick. It makes no sense, but it’s the hat that leaves him feeling the most self conscious. His paralysis feels justified, a badge he’d earned defending his home, his children; his leg, amputated above the knee, had been a necessity to keep him alive in prison; but his hair—

Since he’s been liberated from prison, Charles has spent countless hours staring at his reflection, disgusted by it. His scalp is scarred from the endless experiments they’d conducted on him, pushing the limits of his telepathy to test the effects of Separation on mutants. His hair is coming in slowly now, coarse and grey where it comes in at all, and Charles had asked the nurses to shave it off, closing his eyes against the nausea that razors against his skin brought.

There’s a flurry of movement around him, the blurry outline of minds around him sparking with activity and high emotion—not that he can distinguish anything substantial without giving himself a headache these days. Distantly, Charles realizes that the commotion is because the car is arriving, pulling up to the steps of the building that houses the temporary headquarters of the new Genoshan government.

Worrying at his blanket, Charles swallows down his nerves. He’s a nobody, he thinks. There’s no reason for there to be this much excitement centered on him. But this is unprecedented, he reminds himself. A whole department of the government has been devoted to the reunification of Separated partners. This is the beginning of the Genoshan identity, forged around healing a broken people, defined by acceptance and community.

When they’d first approached him about it, Charles had been skeptical of the program. There was simply no way to reunite Separated couples, and it was cruel to bring such hope to those who were Separated when the chances of their mates being alive was so low. The war had raged for over fifteen years and it was so unlikely that it was barely worth pursuing. Charles can’t even remember when he’d given up hope for himself.

But Emma Frost had gone into his mind, found the thread of his bond and followed it to Israel. The file had turned up in his room less than a day later, Erik’s name on the tab. It had taken Charles almost an hour to build the courage to open the file, but when he finally did, he read through its meager contents only once before focusing entirely on the picture.

The photo is a few years old, copied from Erik’s latest registration ID, but it’s ten years newer than anything Charles has in his memory. Erik is silver haired and menacing, a few scars on the side of his face that Charles doesn’t recognize and a thin, gaunt quality to his face Charles is too familiar with in the faces of the mutant refugees flooding the hospital around him.

Genosha needs him, Emma had told him after, because at his full potential, he could be essential to the success of the program. If his bond could be mended, his mind and powers restored, it could change the future of Genosha and the mutant race. So here they are.

Everything seems to happen in slow motion—the car pulling to a stop, the door opening, the long, lean body stepping out, all dark clothes and silver hair—but when it looks up, when _he_ looks up, to catch Charles’ eye, it feels like drowning.

Through the blur of minds around him and the whir of activity and noise, Charles catches the first clear emotion that he’s felt from someone in years. It burns up across his mind, not through his telepathy, but from their frayed bond— _joy_.

=

Erik runs a hand through his hair and tries to ignore the way his fingers shake as he stares at his reflection in the mirror. The bathroom was the easiest escape that he could think of, but it means he doesn’t have as much time to gather himself as he would like, not with Charles only a few feet away through the door.

Just a few feet, that’s all. Erik’s heart hammers in his chest, almost painful. It helps that he can feel a faint echo of nerves from Charles, but he almost doesn’t believe it. There have been so many moments in the past years in which he felt something like this, a distant, imagined tug at their bond, but it had always been just that—imagined. A trick of his mind. But Charles is here now, and Erik is with him.

He feels like he’s a teenager again, consumed with nervous energy as he stares at Charles through the coffee shop window, his heart stuck in his throat and a sharp tingling in his fingers. Except he’s older now. There are lines on his face in the mirror, jagged scars as well, and his hair is bright and white in the harsh lighting of the hospital bathroom.

He’s been lucky, though, in a way. His removal from the United States, from Charles and his family, has kept him away from the war. Once he’d stepped off of that plane on Israeli soil, he had been free from incarceration, from experimentation, and with his powers so diminished, he’d been all but useless to any cause.

At first he’d thought nothing could be worse than the pain of being apart from Charles in those first few months. He’d been cold and tired and every spike of emotion from Charles’ end of their bond had sent him spiralling into anxiety and anger. But he was wrong. Separation was worse. Watching the way his bonding marks had faded away, scarred over as Charles’ presence became more and more distant until Erik could no longer feel anything but the sick, slow slide of his own mind.

With their Separation had come the loss of his powers, which have dwindled down to a weak magnetization of his fingertips. For years Erik has been an empty shell of himself, waiting on the edge of his seat for news of Charles, for news of their children, for the end of this war.

And the end has come. Erik can barely remember applying for a visa to Genosha. All he remembers now is the letter that had come requesting his presence in Hammer Bay as soon as possible, if not sooner. Immediately. For mutantkind. _For Charles_.

There’s a tightening in his chest and it takes Erik almost a minute to realize that it’s from Charles. Before, fifteen years before, Erik would have been to Charles’ side in an instant at that feeling, and he feels a sinking shame at his hesitation now. He tries to collect himself, taking deep breaths with his hand on the doorknob of the bathroom as Charles’ distress twists inside of him.

He is a failure on so many levels. He wasn’t able to save Charles or their children or even help the mutant cause, at least not in any real way, in any way he wanted to. He’s no longer worthy of Charles, who has suffered real pain for the mutant cause.

The twisting in his chest turns sharp, tinged with something Erik recognizes more quickly—Charles is crying.

Erik is out of the bathroom and to Charles’ side before he realizes it, but when Charles looks up at him from where he’s propped up in bed, Erik freezes. Charles’ eyes are big and blue and watery, barely different from how Erik remembers seeing them for the last time fifteen years ago, but this time there is no determination mixed with his sorrow, only a thick layer of despair.

“It didn’t work,” Charles says, his voice catching as he looks back down at his hands where they rest in his lap.

“What?” Erik manages to say, feeling again that young awkwardness, unsure of how to proceed.

“Our bond,” Charles starts and Erik realizes that Charles is staring down at the scars on his hands and wrists. “My powers aren’t—it didn’t work. And you can’t even look at me—Erik, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Erik can’t stop himself. He leans down over Charles, running his fingers lightly over Charles’ cheeks and pressing their foreheads together. It feels good to be near Charles again, to be touching him. “Read my mind,” he says, short of breath. It will work. It has to.

“I can’t,” Charles says, closing his eyes tightly, pushing himself back into the bed. “It doesn’t work that way anymore— _I_ don’t work that way anymore.”

“Try,” Erik says, rubbing gently at Charles’ temple with his thumb. “Please.”

Charles takes a breath, and then another, and opens his eyes, staring up at Erik helplessly. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay.”

Erik focuses on the words in his mind, the feeling that goes with them, everything he’s been storing inside of him since the very first moment he’d seen Charles, bringing it all to the front of his mind. _I love you_.

It takes a moment, maybe longer, but Erik feels it, the fingers of Charles’ telepathy brushing against his mind, rough from disuse, but unmistakable. _I love you. I missed you_.

Charles lets out a short laugh, one that is as surprised as it is pleased. “Erik,” he says, his eyes bright with tears again.

_I love you_ , Erik thinks again, focusing in on how Charles appears to him now, different from before, but still Charles, still everything he needs.

_I know_. Charles’ mental voice is soft, much more distant than Erik remembers, but just as beautiful.

=

Later, Charles watches Erik stretch and stretch his slowly returning powers, first playing with the coins in his pockets, then the clock on the table, the picture frame on the wall, the doorknob to the bathroom. He still feels winded from his venture into Erik’s mind, but he can’t quench the hopeful spark in his chest at the thought of the future. For the first time in fifteen years, anything seems possible.


End file.
